Stop Talking About Intrapreneurship and Start Implementing!

Sometimes you wonder: can entrepreneurship and big corporations go hand in hand? Isn’t a characteristic of a corporation that it wants to be in control, a risk-averse hierarchy that relies on predictable outcomes (hence, explaining all the market research)? Basic values that are contrary to what we expect from an entrepreneur: pursue in realizing the idea and willing to take risks in order to achieve a desirable outcome.

But with the emphasis on innovation as a way to increase competitiveness and seek new opportunities, intrapreneurship is on the rise to combine the strengths of both an entrepreneur and a business man. Intrapreneurship is reshaping the workforce by engaging the employee in the companies’ wellbeing. To become smarter in this aspect, the intrapreneurship conference will be organized for the third time. This year in Barcelona from the 11^th -13^th of December.

Intrapreneurship is defined on Wikipedia as “a person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation. Intrapreneurship is now known as the practice of a corporate management style that integrates risk-taking and innovation approaches, as well as the reward and motivational techniques that are more traditionally thought of as being the province of entrepreneurship.”

Forbes contributor Larry Myler believes in the added value of transforming employees in intrapreneurs. His table shows the difference in mindset and how it may impact result.

Myler stresses that it requires two conditions to nurture intrapreneurship:
1) Building the skills that increase employees intrapreneurial capacity. When starting to implement intrapreneurship within a company, you have various strategic options to achieve this goal: idea generation, pitch sessions, internal contests, lean startup possibilities, business model innovation among others.

2) Changing key factors in the organization to create a more favorable environment for innovation. This aspect is closely linked to organizational readiness and how a company is able to deal with innovation barriers.

The Intrapreneurship conference will shine a spotlight on these issues for 3 days. The ﬁrst day will be an open day where keynotes, presentation of case studies and panel discussion will be hosted. The Intrapreneurship Conference Open Day is a free event (registration required) designed for anyone interested in learning more about fostering innovation to create profitable solutions to social and environmental challenges within companies.

During the Intrapreneurship Conference Open Day the following topics will be addressed.

How to develop an open corporate culture which fosters innovation through intrapreneurship;
What types of procedures and systems can foster the emergence of intrapreneurship in a company;
The challenges and benefits for companies: intrapreneurs’ testimonies.

During the Intrapreneurship Conference Open Day the European Social Intrapreneurship Programme will be launched.

The following two days the intrapreneurship conference features practical workshops delivered by a group of Intrapreneurship experts and proven intrapreneurs. The Intrapreneurship Conference aims to provide participants with the tools they need to create efficient platforms supporting intrapreneurial initiatives.

The practical issues that will be covered during the conference include:

Corporate culture: Assessing your company readiness for Intrapreneurship;
Helping intrapreneurs navigate through corporate politics and resolve potential office place challenges;
Generating new business lines out of intrapreneurial initiatives;
Organizing Bootcamps designed to generate intrapreneurial projects;
Assembling a team of mentors to support intrapreneurs;
Tutorials on establishing a corporate incubator;
Which rewarding system to adopt;
Resolving valuation issues.

The event is designed for Intrapreneurs, Innovation managers, Chief Strategy Officers, Chief Operating Officers, Human Resources Managers, as well as everyone interested in innovation, Enterprise 2.0 and the new trends of innovation management.

An early bird discount is reserved for registrations made before October 15^th.

Image credits: cygnus, Larry Myler, Intrapreneurship Conference